Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister refers to the 177,000 premises which have been connected, but we are raising the matter of the thousands of houses which are not going to be connected. The Minister of State has not given them any hope. He is telling them the tender process for the national broadband plan will not be completed until the end of this year. We know, based on the past record of the Government, that the timetable might not even be adhered to. It will take a number of years until such time as it is rolled out. People in the areas I have outlined could be waiting for between three and five years to have access to broadband. Meanwhile, there is a broadband provider in their vicinity and on their roads providing broadband to their neighbours which they cannot avail of. We need a little bit of creativity and some thinking outside the box. As Deputy Michael Moynihan said, it makes logistical, creative and economic sense if we are going to pay a contractor in an area to have it finish out the area rather than leave people without broadband. If we are serious about encouraging people to live in rural Ireland and about having businesses operate there, we must be serious about rolling out broadband for rural areas. Unfortunately, the Government has not been serious about that.

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